The Influence of the Visual Modality on Language Structure and Conventionalization: Insights From Sign Language and Gesture

Perniss, Pamela M.; Özyürek, Aslı; Morgan, Gary

doi:10.1111/tops.12127

Cited by 41 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…A further difference between co-speech gesture and sign languages is conventionalization (Perniss, Özyürek and Morgan, 2015). As Earis and Cormier (2013) argue when comparing narratives in English and BSL, both languages have a pool of resources they can draw on, but some of the elements used by signers to depict characters' actions are conventionalized in a way that those used by speakers are not.…”

Section: Expressing Viewpoint In Sign Languagesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The challenges of viewpoint-taking when learning a sign language: Data from the ‘frog story’ in British Sign Language

Gulamani

Marshall

Morgan

2020

Second Language Research

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Little is known about how hearing adults learn sign languages. Our objective in this study was to investigate how learners of British Sign Language (BSL) produce narratives, and we focused in particular on viewpoint-taking. Twenty-three intermediate-level learners of BSL and 10 deaf native/early signers produced a narrative in BSL using the wordless picture book Frog, where are you? (Mayer, 1969). We selected specific episodes from part of the book that provided rich opportunities for shifting between different characters and taking on different viewpoints. We coded for details of story content, the frequency with which different viewpoints were used and how long those viewpoints were used for, and the numbers of articulators that were used simultaneously. We found that even though learners’ and deaf signers’ narratives did not differ in overall duration, learners’ narratives had less content. Learners used character viewpoint less frequently than deaf signers. Although learners spent just as long as deaf signers in character viewpoint, they spent longer than deaf signers in observer viewpoint. Together, these findings suggest that character viewpoint was harder than observer viewpoint for learners. Furthermore, learners were less skilled than deaf signers in using multiple articulators simultaneously. We conclude that challenges for learners of sign include taking character viewpoint when narrating a story and encoding information across multiple articulators simultaneously.

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Section: Expressing Viewpoint In Sign Languagesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The challenges of viewpoint-taking when learning a sign language: Data from the ‘frog story’ in British Sign Language

Gulamani

Marshall

Morgan

2020

Second Language Research

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“…Among scholars of gesture and signed languages, channels of transmission are not viewed as precarious places populated by enemies and vulnerable to failure, but they are viewed as having certain “affordances” (e.g., Perniss et al. ; Sandler ; McNeill 2005; Quinto‐Pozos and Parill ; Levinson and Holler ). For example, a type of channel (e.g., visual‐gestural or oral‐aural) has affordances for a type of expression (e.g., “imagistic” or “analytic”) (McNeill 2005).…”

Section: Channelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Re‐Channeling Language: The Mutual Restructuring of Language and Infrastructure among DeafBlind People at Gallaudet University

Edwards

2018

J Linguistic Anthropol

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This article is concerned with the re‐channeling of language. It asks: what role does the material environment play in turning a visual language into a tactile language? To pursue that question, I examine language and infrastructure among DeafBlind people at Gallaudet University. Since 2005, aspects of the local urban landscape have been designed with the practices of Deaf people in mind. Recently, under the influence of the protactile movement, attention has turned to the tactile dimensions of design. As advisors, practitioners, and consultants contributing to these efforts, DeafBlind people seek not only to broaden the range of sensory channels linking them to their environment, but also to create environments that reinforce those connections across linguistic, sensory, and environmental domains. Drawing on the notion of “channel” as it has been applied and developed in linguistic anthropology and related fields, I argue that the re‐channeling of language among DeafBlind people at Gallaudet implicates channels of transmission. It cannot, however, be reduced to an effect of their affordances. Rather, the signer's perceptions of what is possible in communication are shaped by more general perceptions of what is possible in life, and what is possible in life depends on infrastructure.

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“…There is a continuing debate concerning the role of gestures in sign language and the relationship between the two (Kendon, 2004;Perniss, Özyürek & Morgan, 2015). Early studies of sign language acquisition downplayed any potential role of gesture in sign language acquisition in native signers (Klima & Bellugi, 1979;Newport & Meier, 1985).…”

Section: Vocabulary Development and Gesture In Deaf Learners Of Sign mentioning

confidence: 99%

Deaf and hearing children’s picture naming

Thompson

England

Woll

et al. 2017

LIA

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Deaf and hearing children's picture naming Impact of age of acquisition and language modality on representational gesture. This is the accepted version of the paper.This version of the publication may differ from the final published version.Permanent repository link: http://openaccess.city.ac.uk/21631/ Link to published version: http://dx. AbstractStefanini, Bello, Caselli, Iverson & Volterra (2009) reported that Italian 24-36 month old children use a high proportion of representational gestures to accompany their spoken responses when labelling pictures. The two studies reported here used the same naming task with (1) typically developing 24-46 month old hearing children acquiring English and (2) deaf children of deaf and hearing parents aged 24-63 months acquiring British Sign Language (BSL) and spoken English. In Study 1 children scored within the range of correct spoken responses previously reported, but produced very few representational gestures. However, when they did gesture they expressed the same action meanings as reported in previous research. The action bias was also observed in deaf children of hearing parents in Study 2, who labelled pictures with signs, spoken words and gestures. The deaf group with deaf parents used BSL almost exclusively with few additional gestures. The function of representational gestures in spoken and signed vocabulary development is considered in relation to differences between native and non-native sign language acquisition.

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The Influence of the Visual Modality on Language Structure and Conventionalization: Insights From Sign Language and Gesture

Cited by 41 publications

References 28 publications

The challenges of viewpoint-taking when learning a sign language: Data from the ‘frog story’ in British Sign Language

The challenges of viewpoint-taking when learning a sign language: Data from the ‘frog story’ in British Sign Language

Re‐Channeling Language: The Mutual Restructuring of Language and Infrastructure among DeafBlind People at Gallaudet University

Deaf and hearing children’s picture naming

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